Conference Podcasts

In case you didn't catch them over on Out of Ur, we've now posted the three podcasts recorded at Shift 2008 a few weeks back , including interviews with Mark Yaconelli, Mark Miller, and Drew & Jerome from Switchfoot.

Check 'em out in the Podcasts section of the site.

"Center" and Re-Centering

I’m actually typing this little blog post outside. Those of you who came to Shift traveled to Chicago a week too early - it’s 71 degrees outside right now!

Even though the weather was less than desirable last week, I felt like I was able to leave behind some of the clouds that have been hovering over my heart recently. I was able to “re-center” my soul with God and my calling as a youth-worker.

The first day of sessions were crazy intense for me. And from the vibe in the room I could tell that many of you were sitting with the weight of the work that we have ahead of us. From Brian McLaren’s opening charge to live out the kingdom of God right now in this broken world – to Mark Yaconelli’s simple, honest reflections on spiritual formation in students – to Shane Claiborne’s unashamed fire for justice ... it was enough to make even the most complacent of us sit on the edge of our seats.

That first day set the tone for the rest of our time together. I could feel it in the air. And I hope that you could feel it too. You and I have a very important calling on our lives. As we sang the song “Center” together on Friday morning ... I was struck once again with the reminder that we must re-center our lives on Christ every day. And in that moment, in those last hours, I felt that hundreds of us were united with Christ and his call to return to our communities and live a re-centered life.

I hope that your time with us was energizing and inspiring. I’m really looking forward to the days ahead. See ya next year.

[Brandon Grissom is worship leader at Elevate, Willow Creek's Junior High Ministry. brandongrissom.net]

Shift 2008 Recap

We had a great time, how about you?

Thanks to everybody (that’s you!) who made Shift 2008 what it was.
From main sessions to breakouts, Cups of Coffee to the Thursday Night Experiences, we feel like this year’s event would truly have been different without each and every one of you there.

If you weren’t a part of Shift, check out the rundown of the event over at Out of Ur, who covered our 2 1/2 days together from start to finish.

If you were there, we’d love to hear from you. What was a highlight? Any session, speaker, idea, artist, or experience stand out?

The Shift experience is definitely continuing beyond last week (see Bo’s previous post here). Let’s keep the conversation going...

[Thanks to Gavin for the photo. Check out his amazing Shift 2008 flickr photostream here.]

Online Experience

For the next 3 days, you can follow all of the happenings at the SHIFT 2008 conference over at the Out of Ur blog. April 9-11, we’ll be partnering with Out of Ur to live blog the event, post video highlights from each session, as well as a couple of podcast interviews with conference guests.

If you like the RSS sort of thing, subscribe to Out of Ur here.
Otherwise, check their blog often throughout the conference for regular updates.

Starting April 14, all things SHIFT will be back here at shiftexperience.com.

Until then, we’ll see you over at Ur...

Beyond the Conference

As you can see from the new site, SHIFT is more than just a conference. It’s an identity. It’s a movement, a way of approaching student ministry.

It’s also a commitment. We’ve spent much of the last year looking at statistics showing that the majority of today’s students will leave the church–and many of them leave their faith completely–within the next 10 years. Youth ministries’ ineffectiveness in students’ spiritual transformation must stop.

As youth workers, you’ve seen the stats, you’ve heard the stories, and you’ve probably seen students from your own ministries who’ve walked away from God, and have made this problem more real to you than just a statistic. I know it has for me.

It all begs the question: Who’s going to do something about it?

At SHIFT, we’re committed to inspiring youth leaders to literally shift the future of youth ministries and to write the next 10 years of church history as a decade when an entire generation of students discover God’s amazing love through his son Jesus, and their place in His story—and in the process, change the world.

How?

First, we’re going to help you identify the shifts taking place in today’s culture, including the barriers (inside and outside of the church) that are keeping students from following God.

Next, we’re going to host experiences that explore these shifts, helping us all discover the changes needed in our own ministries to better meet the needs of the students we serve.

We’re also going to provide resources that expose student ministry leaders to the best thinking, ideas, questions, and practices being offered by those actively shaping the future of the Church and youth ministry.

And finally, we’re going to do everything we can to foster relationships that allow student ministry leaders to learn from one another, and find leadership, mentoring and coaching from experienced veteran youth leaders.

It’s going to take all of us. Really. It’s going to take student ministry leaders, churches, and families all working together to make the shifts needed to help our students become life-long followers of Jesus Christ.

It can be done. With God’s help, together, we can shift the future of student ministry.

[Bo Boshers is the Executive Director of SHIFT / Student Ministries of WCA]

Shifting the Future DVD

Rapid changes in culture and technology surround us. How should these changes influence our communication and ministry? How might we connect with students today and inspire them to change the world?

We are continually searching for resources to help youth leaders navigate ministry in a shifting culture. We pulled together some of the best teachings we could find and put them on one DVD to encourage and inspire you. Sessions include:

Donald Miller – Sharing the Gospel without Wierding People Out
Dan Kimball – They Like Jesus But Not the Church
Darren Whitehead – Culture: Where It Is, Where it's Going, and What We Can Do About It
Brian McLaren – Shaped by Our Stories
Louie Giglio – Awake to My Journey

Order HERE - RETAIL: $29.99 MEMBER: $23.99

Breakout Handouts

Chances are you've already received an email, or noticed the new link on the bottom left of the site, but just in case...

In an effort to "go green" this year, we've decided, for the first time, not to print paper copies of breakout handouts for the conference. While some speakers may choose to personally bring print handouts of their own for their breakouts, the only handouts the WCA will be making available will be in PDF format and are now available here.

Please check to see if a PDF is available for the breakout you plan on attending. If you desire a paper copy of the handout, please print it out ahead of time and bring it with you, as there will not be an opportunity to do so once on site at the conference.

We hope you'll appreciate our efforts to conserve paper and print resources, as well as make a number of the handouts available in a convenient digital form.

6 days and counting...

Where Do You Park?

I used to work for a church where one of the pastors would purposely park right next to the front door. Ok, that doesn't seem so abnormal, but let me continue. Separating the front door and the parking lot was a 90-foot long sidewalk that just so happened to be wide enough for a car to drive on or park. Every day ...no kidding... my pastor would drive his car on the sidewalk and park his car right next to the front door. Now, it wasn't the main entrance to the church, but quite a few people used that door and would have to walk around his car to enter the church. I just thought it was the oddest thing and I always wondered why he couldn't park his car in the parking lot with the rest of us.

Philippians 2:3-5 (Message) says..."Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don't push your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself."

As I remember that parking story and dwell upon those verses in Philippians, I ask myself...Where do I park? I have been in youth ministry long enough to know that one of my major struggles is the Big H. HUMILITY. Humility has definitely been a rough road for me and I have spoken to many youth pastors who struggle with it as well. Often times, I too park too close and forget to think about others around me. This realization hit me hard. What right do I have for pointing my finger at my pastor who parked next to the front door, when I have so many things just like that in my life? I need to make sure I have examined myself and that I reflect a Philippians 2 way of life.

So where do you park? I know that too often in my experiences I have had a chip on my shoulder. I have tried to push my way to the top, and in the process have thought too highly of myself, thought poorly of others and have blown chances where I could have made a difference in someone's life. I know that I have parked MY car way too close to the door. I want to encourage you to keep reminding yourself to live a Philippians 2 way of life and to keep humble. If we do, we won't need to worry about parking too close.

[Jason Raitz is the Group Life Director for Elevate, Willow Creek's Junior High ministry. Jason will be leading Cups of Coffee discussions on both Thursday and Friday morning at SHIFT 2008.]

Shifting to Out of Ur

If you’re coming to Shift 2008, your experience will carry beyond the day’s sessions, breakouts and activities and onto the Out of Ur Blog, who will be hosting the online component of the conference.

We feel really lucky to be partnering with Out of Ur this way, as they’re basically focusing all of their blogging efforts for three days on what’s happening here at Shift.

Throughout the conference, you can visit Out of Ur for live blogging of the event, online discussion with other attendees, video highlights of each main session, podcasts and more.

And if you’re not able to be at Shift this year, we hope the Out of Ur blog will give you a sense of the ideas, activities, and conversations taking place here in South Barrington.

See you in two weeks. (Here or online!)

New Podcast with Bo Boshers

We've just posted the latest Shift Experience Podcast, an interview with Bo Boshers, Executive Director of Willow Creek Association Student Ministries. Bo talks about the excitement and challenge of planning a conference like Shift 2008.

To listen to the podcast, click here.

Justice Hits Close to Home (Part Five)

Think of a parent or two who has really encouraged their own kid, and maybe your entire youth ministry, to be involved in service. How did they catch the vision for kingdom justice?

Sandy Liu (Pastor of Youth and Children at Chinese Bible Church of Greater Boston): One single mom and her kids used to be homeless for a short time. Based on what she shared about her experience being homeless, our church started an annual "Operation Mittens" where we collect and distribute warm mittens, hats, scarves and coats to the street homeless. Having such special people within your community makes the kingdom needs more real and visible to an insulated church.

Cari Jenkins (Founder, 11:29 Project): Through experience. One parent served on a high school house-building trip in Mexico and actually came to know the Lord that year on the trip. The next year, Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi and that parent was one of the first to initiate a plan to build homes and get involved there.

Jeff Mattesich (Associate Pastor of Children and Students at Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena): They are learners—they are always asking, seeking, and changing in their pursuit of a Christ-centered life. Many times, they have a history of being involved in justice issues and they also want their kids to understand the connection between justice and maturity in Christ.

As this roundtable makes clear, fears don’t need to be the driving force behind parents’ responses to our missions and justice endeavors. When we begin to invite parents to be key partners and advocates, justice can start hitting students even closer to home.

[This blog post is the fifth and final in a series provided by Fuller Seminary's Center for Youth and Family Ministry. cyfm.net]

In Praise of Noise

While talking on my cell phone I’ll occasionally pause mid-sentence to ask the question, “Are you still there?” I have this pervading sense that my voice is disappearing into a silent void. I’ve lost the connection. Seven times out of ten, the person on the other end quickly assures me that they’re still connected. In the past, I’ve chalked it up to a cheap cell phone (which probably accounts for the other three out of ten). However, upon reading A Perfect Mess (by Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman, 2006) , I’ve learned the rationale behind the sensation of silence on the other end of the phone.

When cell phones went digital in the 1990s, engineers figured out a way to manipulate the 1s and 0s and strip out all of the background noise in cell phone conversations. Only the caller’s voice was heard. No longer would the listener have to hear the din of clattering dishes or passing cars in the background. Plus, not having to transmit all the background noise meant a cell phone battery would last longer. Brilliant!

Cell phone users hated the silence. The silence was abnormal and it was annoying. People loathed the sense of engaging in a conversation and having to wonder if the listener was, in fact, truly listening or were they talking to into a cellular abyss.

Cell phone companies discovered that the very background noise they had spent large amounts of time and money to successfully eradicate actually had a purpose. It created a sense of presence. And so technology companies had to figure out a way to add the background noise back in to the call. The term they use for it: “comfort noise.”

There have been many times when I’ve been in conversation with God and have posed the same question, “Are you still there?” When I’ve begged him to intervene with a student who on the verge of making a life-damaging decision… and she makes the wrong choice. Or when I stand on a frozen street corner amid teddy bears, Mylar heart balloons, slowly burning column candles and Xeroxed photos of a thirteen year old boy. A boy who, two nights before, was out playing with friends and slipped on the ice as he was running away from gang members and was bludgeoned to death. And I ask God, “Are you still there?”

I hate the silence of those moments and others like them, which some times seem to occur too often in ministry. I strain my ears to hear the comfort noise that indicates even though I can’t hear his voice; he’s still listening and still connected.

[Ginny Olson is co-director of North Park University's Center for Youth Ministry Studies in Chicago, Illinois, is the author of numerous books, including Teenage Girls: Exploring Issues Adolescent Girls Face and Strategies to Help Them, and is a breakout speaker at Shift 2008.]